• Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942) •

Lucy Maud Montgomery was born in Clifton (now known as New London), Prince Edward Island on November 30, 1874. Her parents were Clara Woolner Macneill and Hugh John Montgomery. Hugh John was born in Park Corner on August 28, 1841 to Honourable Donald Montgomery and Ann Murray, him being the fifth child. Clara was born on March 5, 1853, in her parents' dwelling in Cavendish, the fourth of six children of Alexander and Lucy Macneill. They both married in her parents' house on March 4, 1874 -- Clara being twenty-one and Hugh John thirty-three. They settled in New London, with Hugh John's general store (Clifton House) adjoined to their hearth. When Lucy Maud was two years old, her mother contracted tuberculosis, and so Hugh John moved his family to Alexander and Lucy's home. Despite constant and immediate care, she passed away on September 14, 1876. Lucy was put into the care of her maternal grandparents in Cavendish, and Hugh John indulged himself into the ever-growing interest and businesses of the West.

The Macneill's lived on a farm three generations old, their predecessors were co-founders of Cavendish in the last decade of the 18th century. The scenic beauty of the place was admirable, surrounded by birches, poplars and spruces, the fort provided a gorgeous view of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and extended to the very cliff edges. Lucy Maud attended the Cavendish schoolhouse, and below the school were spruce trees, with a path leading towards David and Margaret Macneill's home (the latter Alexander's sister). This became the setting for the Anne series; the spruce wood became "The Haunted Wood" and the gabled farmhouse became "Green Gables". Maud recalled her grandfather having a sarcastic and overbearing temperament, and both her grandparents were unable to give her unconditional love. Lucy complained about them in her journals, but she did love her Grandmother Macneill; she did take over Clara's duties after all. When Lucy was seven, two orphan boys (Fred and Devid Nelson) lived with the Macneills for three years - she walked through "Lover's Lane" for the first time playing with them. Her grandfather was the Postmaster, and so when he died, Lucy Maud helped her grandmother with the mail. It was through this experience she secretly corresponded with publishers. Since Cavendish was very small, it was excruciatingly important she prevented her interactions from being leaked out, since everybody knew everybody else's doings. When Maud's grandmother died, and her Uncle John Franklin Macneill inherited the farm, Lucy Maud left for Park Corner. She would remain there with her Aunt Annie Campbell until her marriage on July 5, 1911.oo

Montgomery loved to play on events, people and special places in her books. The Montgomery family was certainly one of them. Lucy Maud's grandfather was a Dominion Senator, and his parents' love story (Donald Montgomery and Nancy Penman) is reenacted in Chapter 7 of "How Betty Sherman Won a Husband" in The Story Girl. Her grandmother's name, Ann Murray - "Ann without an 'e'" may have allowed Lucy to name the famous little orphan "Anne with an 'e'". Maud also utilized a story from her Aunt Margaret Sutherland in Chapter 39 of Anne of the Island. The architecture of their house is also described in Chapter 23 of Emily of New Moon, Aunt Nancy's gothic Wyther Grange. A certain pair of china dogs caught Maud's attention, "When I was a little girl visiting at Grandfather Montgomery's, I think the thing that most enthralled me was a pair of china dogs which always sat on the sitting room mantel. They were white with green spots all over them, and Father told me that whenever they heard the clock strike twelve at midnight, they bounded down on the hearth-rug and barked." Anne also saw these china dogs at Patty's Place, and the enchanting Gog and Magog later became her cherished wedding present. Upon her return to Park Corner, she saw her both soon to wed Uncle Jim and Uncle Cuthbert. The excitement was very much in the atmosphere and the busy kitchen, "[b]aking and brewing and boiling and stewing," was included in Chapter 28 of Anne of the Island. Among her cousins, Heath Montgomery (the boy of Uncle Jim), his experience in biting a 'poisoned' apple is found in Chapter 13 of Emily of New Moon. His experiences in the Great War were also accounted for in Rilla of Ingleside.

One of the consolations Montgomery had was reading, a sign of the talent she possessed. Montgomery had already read a wide selection of books at an early age. She began writing while in school and had her first poem published in a local paper at the tender age of fifteen. Montgomery was qualified for a teacher's licence at Prince Wales College, Charlottetown in 1895. She also worked as a teacher in the 1890s in Bideford, and at Lower Bedeque (both on the island). In 1895-96, Montgomery studied literature at Dalhousie University, Halifax. She returned to Cavendish afterwards to take care of her grandmother and held a job at a local post office simultaneously. Preceding her grandmother's death, Montgomery married Ewan MacDonald in 1911, a Presbyterian minister. She left her native province to move with him to rural Ontario. During Montgomery's success with the Anne series, her husband had bouts of melancholy and maintained a nine-year dispute with her publisher. In 1925, the MacDonald family moved to Norval, near Toronto. After her husband's retirement in 1935, they moved to Toronto. During the late 1930s, Montgomery suffered a breakdown, and remained despondent until her death on April 24, in 1942.

Bibliography/Reference: McCabe, Kevin and Alexandra Heilbron. The Lucy Maud Montgomery Album. Markham, ON: Fitzhenry and Whiteside Limited, 1999.

Last updated: July 13, 2006
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